im still in an iphone gallery

I don’t trust myself not to make the same mistakes I still can’t fully trace. I was so skinny back then, and I still fit into all my pretty clothes. My hair was long and multicolored, yet soft and seldom tangled. Beautiful the way a display case full of cracked tablet screens is beautiful. I hope I can grow into something bigger, something sweeter on the inside, like an ugly dekopon citrus.

Around the time right before I moved away for college my Mom would often chide my executive dysfunction. I thought I could be caring, but she’d notice how I’d prepare myself food without asking her if she’d want any first, or sit and watch her clean that big house all by herself. A heart without space for others is approximately how she’d describe it. I don’t think it was deliberate: it just felt natural to use beauty to conceal something.

Looking back at these pictures I can say it was a long time ago, when we were just kids. But I still tape trash up onto my wall now. Were we already considering writing about it when you taped a lock of my cut hair on my wall, or were most things just done for a laugh back then? There used to be more hair, but over those few months more and more strands fell out until it was just a little bit by the time I moved out.

Does my faith in humanity hinge on my faith in one person? I used to be desperate not to feel alone, but now it seems like the only viable option. Distance is a necessary evil that I rarely know how to maintain. Something about the delayed puberty of testosterone got my tear ducts flowing rather than the opposite. Am I growing up or growing further away from everyone? I’ll keep thinking of you from those long long times ago. Is it possible that no one will ever replace you, now that I know I shouldn’t ever let myself hold anyone that high up again?